Today, the Third World is only waking up to the realisation that in the final analysis, creation, mastery, and utilisation of modern science and technology is basically what distinguishes the South from the North. On science and technology depends the standard of living of a nation. The widening gap in economics and influence between the nations of the South and the North is essentially the science and technology gap. One aspect of the South's deprivation is the fact that science has been treated as a marginal activity in the South and by the South. The emphasis has been on the "Transfer of Technology". Very few within the developing world appear to realise that science must be broad-based in order to be effective in applications and that the science of today is the technology of tomorrow.

Why does this gap exist and why is it growing so fast? Why is the size of science and technology sub-critical and its utilisation in Africa so meager?

2. Why is science and technology lagging behind in Africa?

There are three reasons why Science and technology in the Third world countries and in particular in Africa have suffered.

(1) Lack of meaningful commitment towards science, either basic or applied
By and large, there has been scant realisation that science can be applied to development. In contrast, around 1870, the Japanese emperor took five oaths of such nature. The consequences of this lack of commitment have been little expenditure on science (whether basic or applied), weak universities, sub-critical and isolated communities of scientists (with scant provision for infrastructure and for scientific literature), and weakness in scientific and technological education.

(2) No commitment to self-reliance in technology
In technology and, by large, few of our governments have made it a national goal to strive for self-reliance. The situation may be better for "low" technologies but is pitiful where ?high? technology is concerned for we have paid little attention to the scientific base of high technology, i.e., to the truism that science transfer must always accompany high technology transfer, if such transfer is to take place.

(3) Inadequate institutional and legal framework
With respect to political actions needed, there is the necessity to have institutional and legal enactment. For example, one could mention the Korean experience where the government spearheaded, on the institutional side, the creation of the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), the Korean Advanced Institute of Science (KAIST), and others. On the legal side, there was the enactment of several important laws for the development of science and technology. These included the law for Promotion of Technology Development of 1972 to provide fiscal and financial incentives to private industries for technology development, and the Engineering Services Promotion Law of 1973 to promote local engineering firms by assuring markets on one hand and performance standards on the other.

3. The manner in which the enterprise of science has to be run
Science depends for its advances on towering individuals. An active enterprise of science must be run by scientists themselves and neither by bureaucrats nor by scientists who may have been active once but have since ossified. Science flourishes on criticism and toleration of opposing views. This has not been jealously safeguarded within our societies.

4. The sub-critical size of science and technology in Africa

One of the revealing indices of the size of the African science and technology is the funding which the Africans provide for research, development and utilisation of science and technology. To appreciate this, one has to look at the statistics, which give the defence, education, health, and science expenditures as percentages of the GNP, both in Africa and the North.

The point about these numbers is the following: Both the industrialised and the developing countries in general spend 5.6% of their respective GNPs on defence. The educational expenditures are also similar - 5.1% for the industrialised and 3.7% for the developing countries. For health, it is 4.8% for the industrialised and 1.4% for the developing countries, admittedly showing a difference but not as striking as that for science and technology. The figures for this latter differ from each other by nearly an order of magnitude.

The industrialised countries spend 2-2.5% of their GNPs on research, development, modification, adaptation, and utilisation of science and technology. In contrast, this expenditure is less than 0.3% for most developing countries. Even though one may argue that spending on science and technology is a necessary condition for its developmental aspects but not a sufficient one (on account of other motivational factors which are just as important, e.g., cultural), it remains a fact that industrialised countries spend, on the average, seven times more every year on science and technology than the third world.

A second index of the sub-critical size of science and technology is the numbers of those actively engaged in this activity in the third world. The UNESCO figures once again paint a different picture for the South and the North. In the North, an order of 2000 or more inhabitants per million are engaged in research and development. On the other hand, those similarly engaged in the South seldom exceed more than a few hundred.

5. Steps needed to make science and technology strong in Africa

A. Classes of communities in a developing society

There are five classes of communities in a developing society that could be involved in the building up and utilisation of the enterprise of science and technology in our countries. First, there are our rulers who determine the priorities. Second, there are the planners and the economists who advise them. Third, there are the entrepreneurs with their management skills and risk capital. Fourth, are the educators plus the religious leaders in some of the African countries who interact directly with the public. Fifth, come the scientists and the technologists.

Different societies have differing experiences with regard to the primary one or more of these classes. For example, the Brazilian experience has been one of the closest between the rulers (the military men in the past) and the economists and the scientists. For India, Nehru's influence, no doubt conditioned by his background as a science student in Cambridge, was paramount in laying down the traditions for scientific and technological research.

B. Generous patronage and minimal expenditures on science and technology

No science and technology (research and development and their meaningful extension and utilisation) is possible without a nation spending an inescapable minimum of funds on it. In the industrialised countries, as a general rule, some 2% to 2.5% of PNB is made available by the state as well as by private industry for the broad four areas of science and technology, namely, basic, sciences in application, conventional "low" technology, and science-based "high" technology.

C. The modalities of growth of science and high technology, including training and international contacts

If one were charged with running science in a typical African country of modest size, one is expected to allocate extra funds to the country's educational budget to build basic sciences in universities, maintain international contact, and train scientists and technicians so as to assure a critical mass. At the same time, one would commission and blueprint a comprehensive plan for applied science, allocating and spending extra funds. What one spends depends on a nation's priorities and could be in one or more of the following areas: agriculture, health, livestock, energy, materials and minerals, environment, soil science, oceans, and communications. This assumes that trained manpower has now been assembled. Finally, one would spend on training of personnel and on research and development in the area of science-based high technology, as the quickest way to produce wealth.

D. Utilisation and reciprocal commitment and responsibility of scientists

(1) Feeling of inferiority regarding indigenous science and technology
Technological dependence of Africa is the mental subordination that arises from the strong sense of inferiority towards science and technology. This feeling, which is particularly serious for decision-makers, tends to inhibit scientific and technological initiatives in our continent. This is an important barrier to overcome, so far as autonomous and self-reliant development is concerned. The economists in our countries must learn that their community should show respect to and employ the scientist and the technologist within the country before thinking of hiring scientists and technologists from abroad. Wherever this has happened, like in Brazil where indigenous economists have worked hand in hand with the indigenous scientists, the country has taken phenomenal steps in growth.

(2) Reciprocal responsibility of scientists and technologists
A parallel sense of responsibility must also be instilled by and into the scientists and the technologists in developing countries. Scientists and technologists are, at present, an insignificant portion of our populations. They constitute a particular niche of every society. The relevance of this niche is a function of its explicit articulation and integration with the national development process. The top-ranking scientist and technologist must, in particular, feel that he is part of a team that is engaged in an exciting venture. Such an articulation depends upon the conscious involvement of the scientific and technological community in the tasks of socio-economic development, as well as upon the image of science and technology in the minds of the non-scientific population, in particular of decision-makers (politicians, entrepreneurs, and managers). This two-way interaction depends as much on the attitude of scientists and technologists towards development as upon the reciprocal attitude of administrators towards the scientists.

E. Recognition that creativity in scientific research is not easy and has its own mores and modalities
It should be borne in mind that scientific research can not always deliver solutions to all problems all the time, particularly to the time scale set by the administrators. Witness, for example, the situation in the North, regarding cancer and AIDS researches; this happens in spite of the expenditures of billions of dollars in rich countries and the provision of hundreds of researchers.

6. International modalities for the growth and utilisation of science and technology
The following is a list some of the modalities through which the North can help Africa to build up its scientific base.

(i) A certain percentage of the foreign aid fund earmarked for science and technology. Another proposal that may be considered in this context is that a consortium of universities, e.g., from the USA, Europe and developed countries from Asia, be helped by their governments and encouraged to take care of university science in some African countries. India benefited from such program during the sixties when it created four Indian Institutes of Technology. The one in Kanpur was created by a US consortium of universities that helped raise and furnish it, besides supplying the higher cadres of teaching staff for a number of years. A consortium of British universities helped the one in Delhi, the one in Bombay by the USSR, and the one in Madras by the Federal Republic of Germany. Each nation helped to build up the institute under Indian auspices, contributed staff, and left behind a tradition in teaching and research even after the original contracts had expired.

(ii) Free access to scientific literature. It should be considered as part of the birthright of scientific communities in a developing country that the country should have at least one complete Central Science Library containing all science journals and all scientific books.

(iii) In multilateral co-operation, the United Nations agencies should have a prominent role in building up scientific infrastructure in their areas of competence. African countries need research institutions on the applied side like the Wheat and Rice Research Institute in Mexico, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, and the UNIDO International Centre for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering at Trieste and Delhi.

(iv) Multinational corporations (that use Africa as a manufacturing base for their high technology products) persuaded to conduct some of their research in Africa. Apparently, the Brazilians succeeded in persuading the multinational corporations to do precisely this in their country.

(v) South-South and African-African Collaboration. This type of collaboration in science and technology is important for science and technological education and for higher training, for science in application, and for building up technology. This is because of the similarity of problems and experiences. South-South collaboration is important, but one must not forget that science and technology are being created in the North (USA, Europe) or in Japan. Thus, it would be counterproductive to speak of a South-South collaboration in this area to the exclusion of South-North collaboration.

References

1. Various UNESCO Literatures on Science and Technology for statistical figures.
2. SALAM's Ideals and Realities, 3rd. Edition. World Scientific1989.
3. World Bank Figures and Notes, 1997.